Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As people can see from all around me, I am operating the same paper-based system as the HSE. That is a joke, but the system is a joke that we need to fix. It is an easy fix that we have managed not to implement for many years.

Like other Deputies, I wish to thank the Mental Health Commission. I also thank Dr. Susan Finnerty for her excellent work on this. We will all say that we are shocked but not surprised. We in the House go around and around the garden when dealing with healthcare, particularly mental healthcare. We talk about how resources are not in place and how we cannot provide children with the services they need and to which they have a right. There are 617 children waiting for CAMHS in CHO 8, which is my CHO area.

I accept the comments about the large number of people involved in mental healthcare who are doing excellent work. A large number of people are also thankful to be able to access that service. However, many of the conversations in the House revolve around those who cannot access services. This report goes beyond even that, and we are now talking about lost children. That is unacceptable. I do not know of any time or place where it would be acceptable. We only know of 140 in one team, but the Minister spoke about 4,000 cases that needed to be reviewed. We need a timeline for that. The sooner they are reviewed, the better, but it must also be done comprehensively. I have been over and back with the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, on many issues. In fairness to her, we have tried to deal with them on an individual basis, but neither of us is a doctor and that is not the way to do business. Deputy Munster spoke about the case of a father, Richard, and his 16-year-old daughter, Amy, who were going through a crisis. We have all raised cases on the floor from time to time and Richard had already gone public on "The Michael Reade Show" on LMFM. We can sometimes get traction by raising cases and bring them to a head, but that is not the way to do business.

Numerous calls have been made, be it in respect of mental health reform or the work being done by my colleague, Deputy Ward. We know what the requests are. I do not know how many times the Dáil has to discuss workforce planning, but let us be clear, in that we cannot be sure that all positions will be filled next year, the following year or even the year after that. We speak about the lack of psychologists, occupational therapists and necessary services. If we move beyond mental healthcare to disability services and so on, those numbers are even greater. We must become far better and ensure that we have a throughput of people who can do this work.

Be it primary care, disability services or mental health services, people are sometimes unable to access CAMHS for their children because the services operate in silos. Ping pong is played from time to time. For example, a service might accept that a child with autism might have some anxiety, but it will say that it cannot provide help and the child must go elsewhere. A large number of families are being failed abjectly.

We can keep having these conversations, but we need to offer people solutions. Otherwise, more Deputies will raise individuals’ stories in the Chamber. Those individuals might be lucky and get dealt with, but doing that does not provide the solution that is needed across the board. The cases need to be reviewed as soon as possible. We need to put a better governance structure in place as regards anti-psychotic drugs. I do not know where someone can go in that regard. First and foremost, though, we need a timeline that we can present to our citizens for when the Government will provide a service that will deliver. Regardless of what area of healthcare we discuss – it is CAMHS today – we are talking how people are being failed abjectly.

See this speech in context